


On a Darkling Plain

by skreev



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Swimming, thalassophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:14:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28001472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skreev/pseuds/skreev
Summary: Why had she ever let him go? The thought grinds at her. She had him within her arms once, and she had let him drift away from her. Hubert is wrong, she thinks; she does let her fear control her, more than she wants to admit.----Edelgard faces her fear of the ocean by learning how to swim. Hubert obliges her.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 12
Kudos: 36





	On a Darkling Plain

**Author's Note:**

> CW: descriptions of drowning

_Ah, love, let us be true_

_To one another! for the world, which seems_

_To lie before us like a land of dreams,_

_So various, so beautiful, so new,_

_Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,_

_Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;_

_And we are here as on a darkling plain_

_Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,_

_Where ignorant armies clash by night._

“Dover Beach,” Matthew Arnold, circa 1851

* * *

Edelgard hears the ocean, although she cannot see it. Beyond the halo of her lantern on the sand, all that she perceives is the black screen of night and the roar of the ocean as it hurls against the shore. There is no moon to alleviate the gloom. Just a smattering of stars through the clouds.

Edelgard closes her eyes. The darkness threatens to consume her, but the wind on her face reminds her that she stands outside in the unrestrained space of the beach. The pugnacious sea air breaks her arms into goosebumps and her neck into chills. The ocean roars louder.

What would it be like, she wonders, to fall into that void? The cold grip of water on her clothing, the oppressive yawn of the ocean enclosing around her. How would it feel, air draining from her lungs, no way to broach the surface? The idea makes her sweat.

 _Do not indulge these fears,_ she chides herself. She inhales deeply and wriggles her toes into the sand. Sea salt sprays her face. It reminds her that, for now, she still stands on solid ground.

“Ah, there you are, your majesty.”

“Hello, Hubert.” Between the wind and the waves, Edelgard had not heard him approach. Even if the ocean did not rage at her, she doubt she would have noticed. Hubert moves like the sandpipers darting along the seafoam—a whisper against the sand.

“May I inquire as to the purpose of this exercise?”

“The quickest way to Hevring is across the gulf,” Edelgard says.

“I am aware.”

Shame and embarrassment rise up to Edelgard’s cheeks. The night stands so dark that Hubert cannot see, but Edelgard knows he can hear the tremble in her voice.

“The quickest way to Hevring,” she repeats, “is across the gulf, and I…” Her voice loses its edge. “I must remain strong.”

“Ah,” Hubert says. It is the same sound he makes when he has caught a courtier in a lie or surmised some spy’s slimy plans. It is a sound of discovery and disappointment. “You mean to acclimate yourself to the ocean before your journey tomorrow.”

“You must think me silly,” Edelgard says. “To still hold such great fear.”

“On the contrary,” Hubert says, “The ocean has made enemies of mighty navies. To fear it is almost wise.”

“You are just saying that to make me feel better. I know you. Don’t deny it.”

“If you will permit me a small indulgence,” Hubert says, “I must flatter you on the subject. To pursue this journey despite your fears shows a great restraint and maturity that most people lack. You fear the ocean, to be sure, but that fear does not control you.”

Edelgard does not humor this with a response. Hubert would always spin her flaws into virtues. In truth, her fear does yield influence over her. She has always managed to avoid traveling by ship. Hubert—who knows her so well—has never scheduled her for a journey like this before. He always manages to deftly curate her schedule so that she has adequate time to travel by road to her northeastern destinations. 

But Edelgard could never avoid such travel entirely. Now it is time for her to face her fears. She can do this, she thinks. It is a mere two days by sea, much preferable to the week bumbling along the coastal turnpikes. 

“You must be cold.” Edelgard feels the comforting shroud of a wool blanket wrap around her arms. It is nothing like the warmth that rolls off of him, his body just a hair away, as he maintains the proper distance between liege and vassal. “You will catch your death out here.”

“I am fine, Hubert. You need not fret over me.” Still, Edelgard tugs the blanket around her. It buffers her from the pounding sea air.

“Would you like to return to your lodgings now?” Hubert asks. “You have an early morning ahead of you. We board the ship at sunrise.”

Edelgard shivers at the idea. Anxiety wells inside of her. It will be another sleepless night, except instead of nightmares of white faces and dark spaces, it will be rolling waves and bubbling depths.

Something must be done about this, Edelgard decides. She cannot permit the idea of spending two days wallowing in her own phobia.

“Hubert, do you know how to swim?” she asks him.

Hubert grunts in confusion. “Excuse me, your majesty?”

“Do you know how to swim?” she asks again. “I remember, when we were children, Lord Hastings’ son was going to teach us, but then…then everything else happened instead.”

“Yes, your majesty. I know how to swim.”

Edelgard drops the blanket from her shoulders, and with it, she sheds her last iota of defense. This is how she will do it, she decides. Hubert will teach her how to swim, and then she will no longer have any reason to fear the great ocean or its briny belly or its breathless depths.

“Will you show me?”

“Now?” She has surprised him. The idea delights her a bit. There is always a certain pleasure in surprising Hubert, in piercing through the veil of solemnity and jolting that iron core.

Edelgard unbuttons her coat and the blouse beneath it. They drop to the sand on top of the blanket. “Yes. Now.” Her voice has regained its constancy. Her fingers fumble to her skirt, and she shimmies her hips to shake it from her legs. She wears now a silken chemise tucked loosely into a pair of shorts. The cold shock of wind on her bare skin mitigates the sensation of anxiety boiling inside of her. “Before I lose my nerves.”

Hubert does not respond. Edelgard turns to see his gaze transfixed on her intensely. The shadows overcloud his eyes. She cannot read his expression. If he objects, he does not voice it. Instead, he eventually nods.

“If that is what you wish.” He turns away. “But I must insist, your majesty, that you dress more warmly. Should an observer stumble upon this scene, I fear that it may irrevocably injure your reputation.”

“I do not wish for my skirt to drag me down,” Edelgard says. She has read of such things. Of women drowned by the weight of their petticoats or gentlemen whose elaborate cuffs snag them on an underwater stone. “Does it make you uncomfortable?”

He has seen her in less. He has seen her clothing ripped from her shoulders by healers in the midst of battle. He has seen her body studied by Arundel’s masked doctors with their cold iron tools. He has once seen her—in an incident never to be repeated— splayed against silken sheets, wrapped around him in the privacy of her bedroom.

“Not at all. I merely wish to preserve your modesty.”

“Come now, Hubert. You know better than that.”

Hubert does not strip as Edelgard does. He neatly folds his coat and sets it on the sand beside her attire. His shoes he straightens side by side, efficiently rolling the socks and tucking them inside. He wears a crisp white shirt starched so stiffly that it does not even ruffle in the breeze. 

Together, they walk towards the white line of seafoam that drives scalloped bands along the shoreline. The light of Edelgard’s lantern does not travel far enough to pierce the black sea. The water washes over Edelgard’s bare feet. Cold and sharp, like panes of ice skimming over her skin.

She stops when it reaches her ankles. Edelgard has never played in the surf or strolled along the shoreline. Edelgard has always watched the ocean from a cautious distance, feet planted on rocky ground, or admired it within static paintings in the safety of a gallery. With a strange curiosity, she realizes that she does not know what to expect.

“When does it go deeper?” she asks.

“It is a slow descent. We will not go far enough for it to matter.”

Edelgard nodded. She braves another few steps. A wave crashes against her legs, with abrupt force. Edelgard staggers backwards, startled and dazed. Another wave shortly follows, and she stumbles backwards, landing on her rear, as more water lashes her face.

Edelgard chokes on the water. The brine burns her throat.

Hubert sighs. In one hand, he weaves an orb of pale iridescence. The other he hooks under Edelgard’s shoulder and heaves her to her feet. Edelgard can now see the ocean expand before her. The waves that threatened to crush her now appear diminutive under Hubert’s light. She is almost ashamed of how easily they felled her.

“Are you certain you wish to do this?” Hubert asks. “The chances you will require such a skill are extremely slim.”

“Yes.” Edelgard squares her shoulders. “If you think so me so easily shaken, then I fear that you do not know me, Hubert.”

This grants her a chuckle. Rare indeed.

“Very well, your majesty.” Hubert keeps a firm grip on her as they walk further into the waves. Hubert stops when the water roils around her waist. The cold deepens at first but eventually levels off into numbness.

“Now, you must first learn how to float,” Hubert says.

“Will you hold onto me?” Her voice peters to a creak.

“Naturally.”

Hubert’s hands steady under her arms as she leans against him. Her feet leave the sand; it feels like flying through a void at first. The undulations of the ocean roll under her. Her hair springs free in the water, a silver corona endowed with arcane light. Edelgard’s eyes tightly squeeze at first, but as she acclimates to the sensation of the water, she slowly opens them.

The stars dust the sky in a dazzling array. The ocean simmers with music—water lapping at her ears, the pulse beneath the waves, the dim susurrus of water folding in upon the beach.

And beneath it all, Hubert’s hands mooring her to himself.

“I am going to let go now,” he says.

 _No, don’t,_ she thinks.

“Very well,” she says.

First one hand leaves her, then the next. She is at the mercy of the waves now. The water rocks against her. Water spills over her belly. She feels her chemise shrink against her skin.

The water shifts suddenly. It bows against her, lifts her, flings her—

Hubert’s hands settle on her again. As the swell breaks over them, he pulls her body flush against his, sparing her from the brunt of its impact. The water quickly settles again. She had not been in any danger, but she appreciates Hubert’s quick reaction.

Edelgard indulges in a moment to catch her breath. She lets herself cling to him in the bouncing waves. His arm cages her. Tall as he is, his arm slides comfortably around her. Strong as he is, it feels like an anchor in the storm. Solid and firm. Immovable, despite the violence of the sea.

The orb-light washes over them both. He appears pale and statuesque in its aura, cut from marble in a pose of consternation. The water has soaked his shirt; it tightens around his chest, nearly transparent, so that she can see the muscle’s fine shapes beneath. She should not blush. She has seen this before. Many times. Once.

For a while, they just drift together. Rooted but not firm. Joined but not close. The way that Hubert’s hand sinks into her hip brings a memory of his fingers skimming her thigh. Water slicks down his hair, reminding her of the exertion that beaded his brow. The current twists around them like the tangle of sheets.

It felt like drowning then too. Out of control. Out of her depth. Perhaps that is why they never spoke of it.

“Shall we try again?” he asks.

Edelgard nods. “Yes.” Her mouth feels dry. It is the saltwater, she tells herself.

This time, he rolls her onto her stomach. His arm grips her middle, a hand bracing just below her sternum. The ocean tugs at her. It threatens to steal her away. If he loses his grip on her now, she will tumble into the currents and float, float, float away—

“Don’t let go,” she rasps.

“Relax,” Hubert tells her. “It will help you float.”

Edelgard tries to relax. She loosens her limbs and reminds herself to trust Hubert. Her lantern on the shore shines like a lodestar to land. They are not so far from safety. Edelgard must constantly remind herself of this.

“Move your arms and your legs,” he instructs. He guides her to paddle her arms and kick her feet. Edelgard is strong and graceful, but her movements jerk and flail, like a child splashing in a fountain. If Hubert judges her technique, he does not say. He merely continues to teach her.

The effort exhausts her. She understands the mechanics of swimming, but the fear of the dark expanse surging below her remains. She pulls herself back to Hubert. It surprises her how easy it is. Like a boat tugged to shore. She clasps her hands around his neck. Somehow they have shifted out further to sea; Edelgard’s feet no longer scrape the ocean floor.

“Are you finished?” Hubert asks.

Swimming, yes, but Edelgard wishes to preserve this moment a blink longer—to latch herself to her anchor. To drink in his warmth and his strength.

Why had she ever let him go? The thought grinds at her. She had him within her arms once, and she had let him drift away from her. Hubert is wrong, she thinks; she does let her fear control her, more than she wants to admit.

Edelgard strays so deep into thought that she does not see the wave barrel towards them. The crest bursts against them. Water swarms over her head. It fills her ears, eyes, nose, and mouth. The force strikes her senseless, and all she is cognizant of is her hands slipping from Hubert’s neck.

The ocean rips her from his grasp. She flings like a ragdoll against the sand. Brittle, gritty textures shave her skin. Above her Hubert’s light winks out, one more star extinguished in the firmament, and Edelgard confronts a darkness that has not visited her in years.

The currents rolls her against the seafloor as panic overwhelms her mind. She cannot tell up from left or right. Any lesson of swimming or floating that Hubert tried to impart is gone in her head.

And Edelgard’s greatest fear comes true.

She does not see Hubert dive beneath the waves. When his arms lift her from the bottom, she almost believes that it is the ocean claiming her once and for all. Her head breaks the surface with violent gasps and coughs. Everything burns with salt and sand. She cannot tell the difference between the tumult of the ocean and Hubert’s arms carrying her to shore.

Hubert collapses with her on the sand. He has not released her from his grip. His body surrounds her, a buffer against the sea that still tickles their feet. He wears a stricken expression, one she has only seen inflamed in the heat of the battle, only in moments when she had encountered the face of her own mortality. Hubert’s hands scope her face. He pushes the hair out of her face.

“Why did you do it?” Hubert asks. He sounds frantic, angry even. Edelgard has never heard such intensity in it before. “Why did you let go of me?”

Edelgard does not have the wherewithal to answer.

“Never let go of me again like that,” Hubert says. “I could have lost you.” His forehead presses against hers. Their skin feels so clammy and damp that she cannot tell where she ends and he begins. “I cannot lose you.”

“Hubert, I am fine.”

“You could have died.”

“I could have died many times before. I have long ago come to peace with that.”

“No, your life is too precious to forfeit. With you, I am—the empire is lost.” His fluster warms her deep inside; it makes her forget the chills that rise along her skin.

Strange, Edelgard thinks. All this time she had always considered him her anchor—her one constancy in a life defined by chaos. She needs _him_. She holds onto _him_.

Never had she considered that he might cling to her.

Edelgard smiles. Her hands fist the damp cloth of his shirt, then—feeling bolder—they latch onto his shoulders to pull him closer.

“I will not let go of you again.” And she means it.

**Author's Note:**

> “I will not write another one shot,” Skreev mutters to herself, hunched over her keyboard in the darkness of her room, “and if I do, it will be a short thing really, a drabble, nothing more,” she whispers as the story pushes past 2,000 words, “and if even if it is longer, I definitely will NOT make the title reference a damn Matthew Arnold poem.”
> 
> Anyways, you can follow me [ on Twitter. ](https://twitter.com/skreev1)


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